


The Academy of Magic

by EnchantressEmily



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Friendship, Gen, Magic School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23304484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantressEmily/pseuds/EnchantressEmily
Summary: Jack O'Malley isn't happy at the Academy of Magic; he finds the lessons dry and boring, and his only friends are his roommate and the little house-spirits that live in the building.  Then a new acquaintance (yes, all right, maybe he's sort of a friend) has an idea that could open up all kinds of new possibilities for Mal...
Relationships: Jack O'Malley & Ben Thackerey, Jack O'Malley & Heinrich Wolfe
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	The Academy of Magic

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at an AU! Most of it was written almost a year ago, but I've finally gotten around to finishing it up. It was inspired by a dream I had about Mal and Wolfe at magic school.

Jack O’Malley sat hunched on his bed, arms wrapped around his knees, glowering at nothing in particular. Each of the small student rooms at the Academy of Magic had two beds built into the wall, one above the other; he had claimed the upper one because it was easier to hide himself there. 

Most of the room’s floor space was occupied by the matching desks and bookshelves that stood on either side of the door. O’Malley turned his head to glare down at the set that was supposed to be his. Half a shelf of textbooks, rarely opened, and a desk that was bare except for the latest disciplinary note from a professor (an hour taken out of his free time for not turning in an essay). His roommate’s desk, on the other hand, was strewn with notes and intricate drawings, and his bookshelf was filled to overflowing.

Books! Everything was about books here. What good were they? How could anyone possibly learn magic from dead words pinned to a page? Magic was everywhere, like air and water; he knew it the same way he knew how to breathe. There was no magic in these stuffy classrooms, not for him.

The door opened, and his roommate came in. Seeing O’Malley on the upper bunk, he smiled. “Ah, Mal. Another disagreement with authority?”

O’Malley smiled back, feeling his tense shoulders relax a little. Mal. He had never had a nickname before – there wasn’t much you could do with “Jack”, and most of the other things he tended to get called weren’t repeatable – but Heinrich Wolfe had dubbed him Mal within a few days of their arrival at the Academy. Maybe it was only because “O’Malley” was hard to pronounce for a tongue used to German, but it felt as if Wolfe looked at him and saw a different person than everyone else did – not the scruffy scholarship boy with the quick temper, but someone deserving of respect and affection.

“What is the trouble this time?” Wolfe asked, setting down his bookbag and the violin case that went everywhere with him. “Is it Professor Fairbairn again?”

Mal groaned and flopped onto his back. “Aye. Goin’ on at me about pickin’ a specialty, why don’t I apply meself ‘stead of lazin’ about, all th’ other students knew what they wanted t’ do months ago – th’ whole bit.”

Each student at the Academy was required, before the end of their first year, to choose a specialty, an area of magic that they would focus their studies on for the next two years. Wolfe had chosen his in the first month; Mal, who had been with him when he walked into the introductory class on channeling magic through music, still remembered the way his entire face had lit up. Mal liked to lie on his bed while Wolfe was practicing and watch the swirling patterns of light and color called into being by the notes of the violin.

But they were more than halfway through the year now, and none of the specialties offered to him had attracted Mal’s interest in the least. The urging of his teachers – particularly Professor Fairbairn, a formidable woman who looked down her nose at him whenever they met – only made him dig his heels in harder.

Wolfe stood on one of the lower rungs of the ladder attached to the beds so that he could look Mal in the face. He didn’t have to climb far; he was taller than Mal by half a head. “Mal, my friend,” he said gently. “Unless you wish to leave this school – which I hope you will not – you must make some choice before the year’s end. Is there no subject that you find even tolerable?”

Mal sat up again and made a frustrated gesture. “S’all so… _dry_. Y’have t’ do this ‘xactly this way, an’ here’s why it happens like this, an’ now write an essay on what that means. Rules an’ bloody theory, that’s all they teach us. That in’t magic.”

“If that is not magic, then what is?” Wolfe asked, sounding curious.

Mal looked away. “Can’t explain proper,” he muttered. “I jus’… know it.”

A small, round head pushed itself under his elbow, and he looked down to see one of the Academy’s house-spirits trying to climb into his lap. His lips twitched up in an unwilling smile, and he rubbed the cat-sized creature behind its long, pointed ears. Wolfe smiled at the pair of them and stepped back down to the floor, settling himself at his desk with a book.

“The O’Malley is sad?” the spirit asked softly. Mal wasn’t sure how the spirits had picked up his name, but this one in particular always called him by it.

“Sorta,” he replied, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb Wolfe’s reading. “I jus’ don’t fit in ‘ere, that’s all. Yer lot an’ Wolfe’re the only ones worth talkin’ to.”

The spirit (which Mal had privately thought of as Hippo ever since seeing a drawing of a hippopotamus in one of his textbooks) rolled over so that he could scratch its stomach. “The O’Malley is our friend,” it agreed. “All of us know and tell the others.”

Mal blinked. Any old building had house-spirits; most people only saw them if they wanted to be seen, but everywhere he had ever lived the resident spirits had flocked to him for attention. He had been almost ten before he realized that not everyone could hear them when they talked. Did they really spread the word amongst themselves about the human who made friends with spirits?

With an effort, he dragged his mind back to the problem at hand. If he didn’t choose a specialty in the next few months, he would be tossed out of the Academy at the end of the year. And while he would be only too glad to leave the world of classrooms and textbooks behind, that would also mean leaving Wolfe, the only real friend he had ever had.

He looked down at the fair head bent over the book and sighed. He knew what he had to do, but that didn’t mean he liked it. 

Leaving Hippo curled up on his pillow, he climbed down the ladder and went over to his bookshelf. “Oi, Wolfe,” he said over his shoulder. “Help me think about which class’s least borin’, will ye?”

Wolfe looked up, surprised, then gave Mal his warmest smile. “Of course I shall,” he said.

Over the next several days Mal made an honest effort to pay attention in class and to look for things about the various subjects that would be, if not enjoyable, at least bearable. It did no good, however; the thought of spending two full years studying, say, transformation or stone magic still made him feel trapped and panicky.

“There must be something that would suit,” Wolfe said for the dozenth time. They were sitting by the fire in the first-years’ common room, a large space with tables for doing schoolwork scattered about, although the students usually ignored these in favor of the battered armchairs and sofas. “Perhaps the magic of plants? You would then be outside, at least.”

Mal shook his head reluctantly, extending a finger to the little spirit, all long, skinny arms and legs, that perched on the back of his chair. “I’d have t’ memorize all their properties, though. Ye know I en’t good at that.”

“Well, I shall not give up,” Wolfe said, reaching across to pat Mal’s shoulder. “I do not wish to lose my roommate.”

The spirit seemed to have picked up the drift of the conversation. “Stay, O’Malley!” it begged, wrapping both arms around Mal’s wrist. “Stay with us!”

“Aye, I’ll try,” Mal said, gently disengaging it. “Can’t make any promises, though.”

“What does your friend say?” Wolfe asked. He could usually see the spirits that hung around Mal, largely due to months of exposure, but he couldn’t hear them.

Mal shrugged. “Jus’ askin me t’ stay. They don’t want me t’ go either.”

“I am glad to know the spirits and I are of an accord in this matter,” Wolfe said, smiling.

Before Mal could reply, a voice interrupted from the other side of the room. “Excuse me, but did you just speak to a house-spirit?”

Mal and Wolfe both looked round, startled; they hadn’t noticed that there was another student in the room. He was seated at a table in the corner, surrounded by books and papers that were stacked with mathematical precision.

“Yer, I did,” Mal said, frowning. “What’s it t’ ye?”

The student got up and came over to them. He was short and slightly built, and his clothes were as neat as Mal’s were untidy. “I’ve never met anyone who can do that,” he said, studying Mal intently. “It’s theoretically possible, but frankly, most of what I’ve read sounds more like folktales than serious research.”

Wolfe saw Mal bristling and hastily intervened. “I do not believe we have met. I am Heinrich Wolfe, and this is Jack O’Malley.”

The student nodded. “Ben Thackerey. I specialize in magical theory.”

“Yer, o’course ye do,” Mal muttered under his breath. Wolfe kicked his ankle.

Ben adjusted his glasses on his nose and peered around. “The spirit you were speaking to – is it still here?”

Mal nodded and jerked a thumb at the back of the chair. The little spirit pulled a face at Ben and made a jeering noise, and Mal had to struggle not to snicker.

Ben stared at the back of the chair for several moments, then sighed. “I can’t see it, but I’ll take your word for it.” He transferred his gaze to Mal. “Er… no offense meant, but you’re… different from the usual Academy student.”

“I don’t talk an’ dress posh, y’mean,” Mal said sourly. “Mebbe so, but if bein’ a ‘usual Academy student’ means ye have t’ use long words an’ only believe what ye read in books, ye can keep it.”

“And what, precisely, does that mean?” Ben demanded.

Wolfe broke in again, making a calming gesture with both hands. “Mal meant no insult, I assure you. He is simply… not much inclined to the academic life.”

“Then what is he doing here?” Ben asked, crossing his arms.

“Got offered a scholarship, didn’t I?” Mal retorted. “Seemed like a waste not t’ use it. ‘Course, if I’d known what it’d be like, I might’ve told ‘em t’ keep th’ money.”

Ben’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “ _You_ got the Holt Scholarship?”

Mal shrugged. “Mebbe? Don’t remember th’ name of it.”

Ben sat down in an unoccupied chair, regarding Mal with a shade more respect. “It must have been; that’s the only scholarship the Academy has for new students. My brother and sister went through the Academy before me –” his mouth twisted briefly, “– and they said the Holt Scholarship is always given to someone from an… untraditional background who has an especially strong natural talent.”

Mal stared at him. “ _Me?_ I’m th’ worst student ‘ere!”

Wolfe, who had been listening with interest, leaned forward to touch Mal’s knee. “I believe this is true, my friend. Perhaps you are not a scholar, but if Ben is correct, that is not what this scholarship looks for. I have often thought that you have a – a sense? a feeling? – for magic that most of us do not. It is this that draws the spirits to you, I think.”

“Huh.” Mal sat back, considering. “So if I got all this talent, how come I can’t find a specialty?”

Ben tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the arm of his chair. “Have you considered studying spirits? It isn’t one of the regular areas, but there are several professors who might be willing to help you arrange an independent study.”

“Like who?” Mal asked warily.

“Well, there’s Professor Fairbairn, my tutor. She might –”

Wolfe coughed. “Eh… I think not. She and Mal do not get on.”

“Oh? That’s a shame.” Ben thought for a moment. “What about Professor Barber? She usually teaches the older students, but I’ve heard she’s interested in a wide range of subjects. Perhaps she could help.”

Mal and Wolfe looked at each other, and Mal shrugged. “Can’t hurt t’ try. Ye’ll have t’ point ‘er out t’ me, though. Only professors I know’re th’ ones I’ve had fer classes.”

It was over a week before Mal got up the nerve to approach Professor Barber. Ben had identified her for him, and she didn’t look too intimidating – a tall, thin older woman with glasses – but he was still half-convinced that she would just brush him off. Why would a senior teacher want to bother with someone like him?

In the meantime, rather to his surprise, he and Wolfe found themselves spending more and more time with Ben. “I do not think he has many friends,” Wolfe said when Mal grumbled about it. “And I like him. Why should we not be friends with him?”

Mal rolled his eyes. “Mebbe ‘cause he’s a fussy little git who snaps at ye fer movin’ his papers an inch t’ the left? All right, fine, if it makes ye happy.”

Even Mal had to admit, however, that his marks had improved since Ben started helping him with his schoolwork – a process that involved a great deal of bickering and the occasional intervention by Wolfe.

“You aren’t even trying!” Ben accused when Mal failed once again to light a candle using the spell they had learned that day.

“There’s too many bloody words!” Mal snapped. “How’m I meant t’ remember ‘em all?”

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Let’s try this a different way,” he said after a moment. “Wolfe says you have a natural sense for magic. Don’t bother about the words; pretend that you’ve never heard of this spell, but someone told you to light the candle without touching it. What would you do?”

Mal opened his mouth to make a smart reply, then closed it. He looked at the candle that stood on the table between them. If he thought about it, he could feel the magic in the air around it; there was no magic in the candle itself, but it wouldn’t be difficult to move some in that direction.

Glancing for reassurance at Wolfe, who was reading nearby, then at the furry, sharp-faced house spirit currently sitting on Ben’s stack of books, he cautiously extended a hand. The magic swirled in response, and Mal tried to push some of it toward the candlewick, thinking of fire. He could feel the power following the movement of his fingers, as if he was trailing his hand through fog.

The wick quivered, then burst into flame.

Wolfe looked up at Ben’s exclamation. “Ah, you have it!” he called over. “Well done, Mal!”

“Yes,” Ben said, staring at Mal. “I’m not certain what you did, but that was… impressive.”

Mal looked from the burning candle to his hands and back. “I en’t sure either,” he admitted. “Jus’… felt right.”

Ben sighed again and took off his glasses to wipe the lenses with a handkerchief. “You know, O’Malley, I really don’t know what you’re doing here. There’s natural talent, and then there’s – whatever this is. I may be only a first-year myself, but from what I’ve seen, I’m not sure the Academy has anything to teach you.”

Mal looked over at Wolfe again. “Mebbe,” he said after a moment. “But now I’m here, I reckon I might as well stay anyways.”

The next afternoon found Mal lurking in the corridor outside the room where Professor Barber was giving a lecture. When she emerged, talking with several third-year students, he stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Uh – Professor?”

Professor Barber paused and looked at him inquiringly. The third-years glanced at one another and continued on their way.

Mal took a deep breath. “I-I’m Jack O’Malley. A bloke I know said I should ask ye about helpin’ me with a special study.”

“What sort of study?” the professor asked, sounding interested.

Mal shifted his feet and glanced away. “Uh – well – I can talk t’ house-spirits. They like me, an’ all. An’ there’s nothin’ I want t’ specialize in, so my friend –” and what was he doing referring to Ben that way? “– said mebbe I could do somethin’ about spirits.”

Professor Barber’s eyes brightened. “Splendid! Come and sit down, and we’ll talk about it.” 

She led Mal back into the empty lecture hall, and they sat on the bench in the last row. “Now, tell me about the spirits,” Professor Barber said, settling her shawl around her shoulders. “Have you always been able to speak to them?”

Mal nodded. “Long as I can r’member. I don’t have t’ look fer ‘em, neither – they come an’ find me. Guess they like havin’ someone t’ talk with.”

The professor smiled. “I imagine spirits get lonely as much as we do. What do they talk about?”

“Nothin’ much,” Mal mumbled. This was harder than he had expected; even with Wolfe he didn’t go into much detail about the spirits, and harmless as the professor’s questions were, they still made him want to curl up and shield the private side of himself from prying eyes.

Professor Barber, evidently noticing his discomfort, changed the subject. “I have a number of books about house-spirits that might interest you, if you’d like to borrow them. We could begin the study by discussing those.”

Mal wrinkled his nose. “I guess. Not much fer books, though.”

Professor Barber looked taken aback. “You aren’t? Why not?”

“They… box things in, sorta,” Mal said, hunching his shoulders. “If somethin’s in a book, everyone thinks it has t’ be true, right? But there’re lots’ve things that ye can’t fit into books.” He didn’t add that he had come to reading later in life and still found it difficult; she didn’t need to know _everything_ about him.

“I see.” The professor considered for a moment, then looked at him, eyes twinkling. “What about this, then? You read the books I’ll give you and write down all the things that they get wrong or leave out. Perhaps it could eventually become a collection of information about spirits that most people don’t know.”

A slow grin spread over Mal’s face. This sounded like research that he might actually enjoy. “Yeah, I could do that. Mebbe th’ spirits could help.”

“An excellent idea,” Professor Barber said, smiling back at him. She paused, then added, “You likely don’t know this, but my surname was Holt before I married my husband.”

Mal was briefly confused – what did that have to do with anything? – but then he remembered Ben talking about the Holt Scholarship. He sat up with a jerk. “ _Yer_ th’ one brought me ‘ere?”

His accusatory tone made her laugh. “I’m afraid so. Has it been very difficult for you? I do apologize.”

“How’d ye find me?” Mal asked suspiciously.

Professor Barber waved a hand. “My friends and my family always let me know when they come across someone who might be suitable for the scholarship. When my eldest granddaughter mentioned that she had had – er – official dealings with a young man who claimed to be talking to spirits, I thought it was worth looking into.”

Mal realized that her granddaughter must be the formidable police officer who had nearly arrested him for public drunkenness when she overheard him having an apparently one-sided conversation with something invisible. “Have t’ r’member t’ thank her if I see her again,” he muttered.

“Is it really that bad, being here?” the professor asked sadly.

Mal scowled at his shoes to avoid meeting her eyes. He’d thought Wolfe was the only one who could manage to make him feel guilty about his behavior, but now Professor Barber was doing it too. It wasn’t fair.

“S’not all bad, I guess,” he said at last. He thought of Wolfe, of Hippo and the other Academy spirits – and yes, even of Ben – none of whom he would have met if he hadn’t come here. “Still don’t belong, though, not really.”

“Perhaps the way magic is taught at the Academy doesn’t suit you, but you do belong here.” The professor’s eyes, when Mal looked up at her, were warm behind her glasses. “When I was young I wanted very much to learn magic, but because my family wasn’t wealthy, I had difficulty finding a school that would accept me. Ever since then I’ve tried to assist other young people whose abilities, because of their circumstances, would otherwise be overlooked. You have a great deal of magic in you, Mr. O’Malley, and I mean to help you learn just what you can do with it.”

Mal studied his hands, as he had done after lighting the candle. He had had no idea he could do anything of the sort until Ben had nudged him to try. What else might he be able to do besides talking to spirits? “All right,” he told Professor Barber. “I’ll try it.”

When Mal returned to his room, he found both Wolfe and Ben there, poring over a thick book at Wolfe’s desk. Wolfe looked up with a broad, welcoming smile. “There you are, Mal! We wondered what had become of you.”

“Jus’ talkin’ t’ Professor Barber,” Mal said, trying to sound offhand. “She says she’ll help me do that study thing.”

“Then you will not need to leave?” Wolfe exclaimed, jumping up to clap him on the back. “This is very good news!”

Mal’s reply was drowned out – at least in his own ears – by an outburst of excited squeaking from Hippo, who appeared suddenly from somewhere to bounce around his feet. “The O’Malley is staying!” it cheered. “Hooray!”

Mal laughed despite himself, crouching down to stroke the little spirit’s head. “Aye, I’m stayin’. Might need yer lot t’ help me with some things, too.”

Ben put a bookmark in the book he and Wolfe had been reading and came over to join them. “Er… congratulations, O’Malley,” he said awkwardly. “I’m – I’m glad things worked out with Professor Barber.”

Mal looked up at him. Although he didn’t intend to admit it, he knew it was because of Ben that he now had a specialty that would allow him to stay here with his friends.

“Yeah,” he said, climbing back to his feet. “Me too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Mal's feelings about books do not reflect the opinions of the author!


End file.
